Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, believes it's "doable" to have hundreds of millions of doses of a coronavirus vaccine ready by January 2021.
Fauci appeared Thursday on Today after Bloomberg reported that a Trump administration program, Operation Warp Speed, aims to speed up development of a COVID-19 vaccine with the goal of having 300 million doses available by January.
Asked if this rapid timeline is actually possible, Fauci told Today that he believes it is, explaining that the plan is, as Bloomberg reported, to quickly move to ramp up production of some potential vaccines while they are undergoing trials but before it's clear if they work.
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"We're going to start ramping up production with the companies involved, and you do that at risk," Fauci said. "In other words, you don't wait until you get an answer before you start manufacturing. You, at risk, proactively start making it assuming it's going to work. And if it does, then you could scale up and hopefully get to that timeline."
Fauci added of this quick timeline, "I think that is doable, if things fall in the right place." In its report on Operation Warp Speed, Bloomberg noted that "there is no precedent for such rapid development of a vaccine." Brendan Morrow
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